


Into Tiny Little Pieces

by littleblackchat



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Heavy Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 05:21:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9307106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleblackchat/pseuds/littleblackchat
Summary: All the angst; gird your feels, I'm comin' for 'em.





	

With a shrill _hmph_ she turned on her heel and stomped away, Sabrina quickly following behind her like a human cape. Adrien frowned defeatedly. Nino shook his head.  
  
“Dude, how do you put up with that all the time without going…” his friend gestured as he fumbled for the right word, “nuclear?? I dunno what you see in her, man.”  
  
To that, Adrien wasn’t sure what to say. As he watched Chloe’s retreating figure, her fists clenched childishly at her sides, his memory flitted to a much smaller blonde from not so long ago. He saw one tiny hand swallowed by a father’s much larger one, the other defiantly white-knuckled in the effort to hold back tears that fell nonetheless. Images flashed in his mind’s eye that Adrien couldn’t have shared even if he’d had permission to: the grey silhouette of his only friend as she watched her whole world being lowered slowly into the ground; the stinging determination that glowered through the red-rimmed eyes of a girl whose life would never be the same...  
  
No, Adrien lacked the poet’s ability required to convey these things to Nino. Instead he smirked wistfully and shrugged the question off. The response was enough to satisfy his swarthy friend, and the pair turned and made their way down the hall.  
  
“I just don’t get what her _deal_ is, you know?” he continued. Half-listening, Adrien stole a glance across Nino at the courtyard as they passed it. He caught a glimpse of Chloe barricaded in one corner, cross-armed while Sabrina fluttered around her. Chloe ignored the girl and glared at the ground. “Like… other than _you_ , maybe, her family’s like the _richest, biggest wigs_ in town, but she’s always in a bad mood. Like, what the hell?”  
  
Adrien sighed in acknowledgement. He knew as he rested his gaze towards his shoes that Nino wouldn’t understand why he couldn’t find it in himself to be angry. His friend couldn’t know how every condescending glare, every harsh word, every cheap insult morphed in Adrien’s mind into the parting words he bore witness to as Chloe--the real Chloe--shut the door on the rest of the world for the last time.  
  
“Your ride here yet?” Nino asked, and Adrien realized they were already standing in front of the school.  
  
“Oh, uh, no,” he answered uncertainly, thrown off-kilter by the sudden change of thought. “Not yet...” he trailed off, looking around. The pair sat on the top step to wait, and Nino’s interest shifted to other things: classmates, physics projects, group assignments, Alya’s blog. Adrien couldn’t focus on most of it. In his mind the same familiar scene was playing out, and it drew his attention, as it always did.  
  
_“I know it hurts, Chloe,” he heard his own voice echoing around them. “If you just--”  
  
__“Stop.” The sureness of the word cut through his timid ones, and hung in the air as if daring its use a second time.  
  
__He looked up to find icy blue eyes staring at him in the dark, the red around them adding something almost possessed to the anger behind her gaze. It captured him, his hand hovering in midair above her shoulder, the empathetic touch brusquely slapped aside.  
  
__He couldn’t look away.  
  
__“Stop being so... Everyone’s been doing that all day -- it’s all ‘poor little Chloe’ this, and ‘don’t worry’ that, like they’re afraid I’m gonna break, but I already--” She paused to take a shaking breath as she visibly steeled herself. “I don’t need you to make it better._ Nothing’s _gonna make it better.” At this, Adrien turned away with a knowing look on his face, his shoulders falling in defeat. “So don’t be nice to me, and don’t try to make me forget, because I want to remember. I… I want to remember it so I never have to feel this ever again.”  
  
__At the creak of the door, Adrien looked up to see Chloe paused on the threshold, staring out at the glittering splendor beyond. The thrum of conversation, the fancy dresses, the sparkling crystalware shone their light into the closet around Chloe’s silhouette in maudlin contrast. She whispered over her shoulder so quietly that he almost missed it.  
  
__“I’ll make it so nothing--no one--can ever hurt me again.”_  
  
Without another word she wiped the tears from her face and marched into the room in front of her. She didn’t look back as the door slowly consumed the sight of her like a curtain, and finally closed with a gentle click. The sound echoed in Adrien’s mind like a tolling bell, even now.  
  
“-ride?”  
  
“What?” Adrien jerked back to reality to find Nino staring at him worriedly.  
  
“Isn’t that your ride, dude?” he repeated, suddenly unsure. Adrien’s head snapped to the right to see a familiar sedan with tinted windows waiting patiently at the curb.  
  
“Uh, yeah,” he answered, hurriedly collecting his things and skittering down the steps. “Thanks, Nino!” he called over his shoulder as he slid into his seat. His friend waved with a smile and Adrien waved back, grateful. Over Nino’s shoulder, he saw Chloe burst through the double doors. Adrien waved at her, too. She met his gaze for only a second before turning her head sharply away.  
  
Adrien dropped his hand to buckle his seatbelt, but he still couldn’t be angry. The truth is that what had left him torn open had closed Chloe up; and no matter how many times she slammed that door in everyone’s faces, all he heard was the little girl still crying on the other side of it.  
  
“Careful,” Nathalie warned as the car door swung shut.

  
  
✧         ✧         ✧

 

 _“It’s like every time he touches me I can see this, this... neediness to be loved in his eyes and I just can’t… it’s like an emptiness that I can’t fill up, and I’m just--”_  
  
These are the words that flit through his mind as he catches himself reaching for Ladybug’s shoulder, and he instinctively recoils. He rubs his palm as if burnt, as if his right hand doesn’t trust his left, and he turns away from the girl. He’s terrified by how late in the motion he caught himself. What if he had--  
  
He looks at his hand, clutched tightly against his chest as if it will escape otherwise. It had been almost comical when he’d first discovered his power--the ability to destroy with a touch. The irony of it had turned his stomach, like it does now. He’d had this power long before he’d met his kwami. The words echoing in his memory merely serve as a reminder of that.  
  
He looks over his shoulder at his partner.  
  
No, he mustn’t touch her, must adhere to his personal rules for her more than anyone else. He would mourn the loss of his friends, even his assistant or chauffeur, but Ladybug… he can’t let her disappear. And so he will not--cannot--touch her.  
  
Or so he’s told himself a thousand times. And yet, he can’t stop himself from touching her. He finds himself taking her arm, or brushing kisses across her fingers, or squeezing her shoulder as if his body moves on its own and he is merely an internal spectator, powerless to escape her orbit. It makes sense--after all, in his world, she is the sun.  
  
He’s been so careful up to now. He’s planned every word and action, meticulously premeditated every move that he makes, thought through every possibility. But he doesn’t think around her. He’s caught in the pull of her gravity and he’s hurtling towards her before he even realizes he’s falling.  
  
And he has fallen. He knows that much.  
  
But still, he mustn’t touch her. No matter what it takes, he must resist her. He can’t afford to lose her like he did his mother.

 

✧         ✧         ✧

 

Gabriel Agreste was never one for hyperbole. Where others succumbed to flowery language or exaggeration, he had always prided himself on his pragmatism. Even when he’d proposed to his wife, there’d been little fanfare. He'd simply stated the facts: he needed her; once he knew her, he couldn’t imagine how he could ever be happy without her. Though they'd overwhelmed him, he’d expressed his feelings as simple, accurate truths.  
  
Such was the manner of Gabriel Agreste.  
  
And so, when she’d disappeared, he’d been more amazed than anyone that the only way he could describe his situation was to say that his world was shattered beyond repair. He felt as if he had splintered into a thousand glass fragments so fine that they took to the wind and dispersed in every direction, tearing him apart as they flew.  
  
He had been right, though: he could never be happy without her. Whether he’d been happy before her he could no longer remember, and it mattered little now.  
  
No, Gabriel Agreste was not a man of hyperbole. And so when he said that his world had ended that day, he meant it.

**Author's Note:**

> Things I have learned: when hchano tells you to post something you should do it because otherwise you'll forget about the thing you're writing until a year later when you find it on accident while digging through Google Drive. 
> 
> Really, any time hchano tells you to do anything, just do it.
> 
> Also ngl because I wrote this so long ago (and in different tenses?? what?? I feel like there was a reason but I can't remember what it was???) I'm not sure if I'll continue wrapping them together or just pick one. Gotta find the notes that went with this.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy your tears!


End file.
